


String

by BlueStarAngel



Category: EastEnders (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Song: invisible string (Taylor Swift)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:42:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26484340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueStarAngel/pseuds/BlueStarAngel
Summary: Ben Mitchell wasn't someone who believed in fate. As far as he was concerned we made our own choices in life; good or bad.Until one day, a chance meeting left him feeling that sometimes things were just meant to be. Sometimes you were just tied to someone no matter how far you ran in the opposite direction.
Relationships: Callum "Halfway" Highway/Ben Mitchell
Comments: 7
Kudos: 82





	String

**Author's Note:**

  * For [The_Blonde](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Blonde/gifts).



> This is my gift as part of the ballum lockdown exchange. The person I was given was @leblonde on tumblr. I hope you like it!
> 
> They were amazing at giving me lots of prompts to pick from. I couldn't include them all but they mentioned Taylor Swift, so this fic is based on her song 'Invisible String'. Well...my interpretation of the song anyway! :D There's also a good dollop of Jay in there, and a little angsty pine (...or future suggested angsty pine) as well.
> 
> This was just going to be a quick one stop drop, but I've accidentally planned a whole story now. So it may have to continue! Maybe...

“Jay, what we doing here?”

Ben leant back in the booth, folding his arms and looking across to his brother. He may not be able to blame him for much that had gone wrong in Ben’s life, but he could certainly heap on the critique now. There was no reason on earth that he would be sitting here if it hadn’t been for Jay’s thoughtless idea.

“You said let’s go out for something to eat!” Jay replied defensively, waving his hand at Ben like this was all his doing. “So here we are, eating!”

Leaning forward and placing his arms on the table, Ben squinted at Jay, not quiet believing him, and worried that he’d been replaced with a pod person during the night if he thought this was what he suggested. “Yeah, I meant a fry up and a coffee! Not this garbage!”

Jay let out a sigh and dropped his spoon down. “It’s frozen yoghurt, Ben. Not a tub full of arsenic.”

Ben rolled his eyes at Jay’s frustration; his brother, the man who picked out the raisins from a hot cross bun, was giving him a hard time for fussy eating. Jay had brought him here, to a brand new frozen yoghurt store on the high street. It stuck out like a sore thumb, the gleaming white fresh paint of the boarding, with some ridiculous font advertising the name that was so small you’d need a good pair of binoculars and Specsavers voucher. It was surrounded by shops that hadn’t been painted since Thatcher was in power, and at certain times of the night and morning, there people chucking up or pissing on the lampposts outside. He wasn’t sure the owners scouted the location as well as they could have.

Even everything in the store seemed sterile, layered with glistening white tiles, all symmetrical at every point. In the greasy spoon a few doors down, the tiler had obviously run out near the end and just put up some leftover carpet tiles on the wall by the fruit machine. Everything in the yoghurt shop was white; the walls, the floor, the tables and the chairs. The only hint of colour was the plethora of flavours of the frozen desert sitting in their perfect white boxes on the counter, and the bright teal of the servers shirt. Everything was clear and fresh. Everything was dull.

“It tastes like curdled shit! You remember when Lo left that pint of milk in the back of the boot for a week? Came out looking like something you’d go to the doctor for? I’d rather have eaten that than this!”

“You’re in a right mood today!” Jay announced, swirling his spoon around in his tub. “Bear with a sore head since this morning, you’ve been! I thought we’d close up early and take you out to try and cheer you up. Come on then, spill. What’s wrong?”

Ben didn’t really know where to start; he had a list a mile long that he could reel off. He could begin with his dad, who flipped flopped between mild ambivalence to outright disdain so often that Ben had whiplash. It could be the dodgy cars he was trying to put through the business at Phil’s request while trying to keep Jay unaware and out of it, or it could just be the general mess that his life was in. He couldn’t give any of those as an answer, no matter how much Jay raised his eyebrows in curiosity at him.

“Struck out last night, didn’t I?” he replied, tapping his spoon on the side of the tub.

“I’m not surprised the state you came back in during the early hours. If you were trying to pull with that much booze in your system, you wouldn’t be able to raise a smile for the poor fella let alone anything else.”

Jay wasn’t exaggerating with that. He hadn’t exactly walked in the house at 3am in the best state of his life. It had taken him five minutes to get the door open and then he didn’t even make it up stairs; just passed out on the table. A bottle of whiskey had been the only answer that evening but that came after he’d tried to pull. The guy was decent enough, almost hot in the dim light of the club, and he’d shown exactly what he wanted when he started quickly grinding into him when they danced. That was handy; he wasn’t one for the whole rigmarole of small talk about the tube delays or what their siblings did just so he could get his hand down someone’s pants.

The guy had quickly gone from promising to hopeless on a matter of moments. He kept to get Ben to come and sit with him, and have a drink at the bar first. That was a huge alarm bell going off, and he knew that whatever happened he couldn’t leave the club with this guy. Either they’d go back to his place, and he’d have to sit with the man’s nan for half an hour looking at baby photos before there was even a hint of a blow job on the table, or he’d take him back to Ban’s and not be able to get rid of him for three days. The guy, Matthew or Mason, or maybe Michael. It started with an M anyway, would want to cuddle down and stay the night, thinking it meant something. Thinking that Ben was the kind of person who would ever link himself to someone. As if he was the kind of man who could get attached that quickly. As if he was the kind of man to get attached at all.

No, he knew at that moment they’d have to do it in the club, or at least within a two minute radius. It was an unwritten rule; anything beyond that and you were stuck with them for the night. Ben had hurried the man out into a quiet little space out the back, and let the man kiss him for a little while groping him through his trousers. It just wasn’t working, even when the stranger stuck his hand into Ben’s boxers, he was just tickling about. He was ten times worse than the guy he’d had three days earlier and he had been a disappointment. In the end, he’d shoved the man off him, pointed him back in the direction of the club and headed off, stopping at a twenty four hour shop to buy a bottle of whiskey to down as he walked. He wasn’t satisfied then, and he certainly wasn’t satisfied now.

“Could do with hare of the dog really, rather that eating a tub of otter’s sick,” he muttered, trying to stir the yogurt into some appealing state.

“You chose it! It weren’t like they didn’t have enough flavours. You had to go for something weird. You couldn’t just go for vanilla, could you?” Jay replied, pointing to Ben’s pot.

“Vanilla’s boring. Everyone’s vanilla. Everyone’s like everyone else; predictable and mind numbingly dull,” he said, his eyes wandering to the tables in the store. “Look around you, Jay. Kids with too much money and too much time, who wouldn’t know a day’s work if it hit them over the head, and couples who are so sick with spending the evening in the house staring boringly at each other, they come here where they can stare at each other over their vanilla or chocolate, or fucking salted caramel frozen load of shite. Why is everything salted caramel now? What was wrong with just normal caramel?”

Jay gave him a look as he stuck his spoon into his salted caramel yogurt. “Yeah alright, grandad! Are you going to complain with every mouthful, or you gonna shut up and eat?”

Before he could answer, Jay’s phone that was set on the table started to vibrate. He peered across to see the picture that appeared as the call was answered. “Alright, Lo?” Jay said, before he listened to the voice at the other end. When he glanced at his watch, it was obvious what was about to happen. “Could get there in twenty minutes, if I get a shift on. Alright, see you then.”

Ben put his spoon down on the table and hurled himself back on the seat, cocking his head to the side in disdain. “Are you actually ditching me?”

“Your mum’s offered to look after Lex, ain’t she?” Jay said with an apologetic shrug. The guilt in his face didn’t help to soften the rejection though. “We can get to that bar to see the band Lola wanted to hear play. You can come with us if you like.”

“Oh great! An evening watching you two suck each other’s faces off while I down overpriced pints to the soundtrack of some depressing guitar player singing about the troubles of life. Bear in mind, he’s probably some middle-class arts student whose biggest problem is a mix up with his Waitrose order or when the barista only puts one shot of vanilla in his overpriced frappuccino.”

“Well, you might pull!” Jay replied, hurriedly and noticeably looking at his watch again. “Actually meet and have a chat with someone, get to know them rather than seeing their dick before you see their face!”

“At some indie twat’s gig, you really think they’ll be someone I want to get with? You think our eyes are going to meet over some lavender gin and halloumi fries, and we’ll go strolling hand in hand down the street as the acoustic guitar plays? If there ain’t someone who can grab me and get me going in the time it takes to pour out a watery IPA, then I ain’t interested.”

“Right, well you can sit there and sulk into your otter’s sick if you like, but I’m going to enjoy an evening with my girlfriend.” Jay said, standing up and taking a final spoonful of his salted caramel. “You sure you don’t want to come?”

Ben was just about to open his mouth, a retrort ready on his lips when the door to the store opened, and the sight meant it fell back from his lips.

It was as if a sea of blue had washed in with the man who entered. He pulled his ear pods out, wrapping the loose wire three times around his phone before putting it into the pocket of his navy bomber jacket.

He strolled to the counter, squinting at the range of containers in front of him. Ben’s eyes travelled down, lower than they were supposed to, and hit on the smooth roundness of his jeans. They were light and sky in colour, and wrapped the man up like a gift.

“Ben?” Jay said, shaking his hand in front of his face to get his attention. “I said, are you sure you don’t wanna come back with me?”

He shook his head, his eyes still not able to leave the man at the counter. “Nah, you’re alright mate, you get off,” he said, before nodding towards his pot of frozen yogurt. “This stuff is starting to grow on me, I think. Only tastes of slightly pungent spunk now.”

Jay gave a role of his eyes. “Well, try and come home in a decent state anyway,” he said, before waving off the idea. “As decent as you can get anyway. I’ll see you later, bruv.”

With Jay finally gone, he could turn his attention back to the man at the counter. He was still standing there, tapping his hand on the glass surface. Ben couldn’t see at his face but he could tell the man was chewing at his lip to make a decision. He wished he would turn round.

The man was talking the faceless assistant behind the counter, all stark in grating teal and nodding away obediently. Ben couldn’t hear what the man was requesting, but he saw the assistant scoop a bright green spoonful into a tub, followed by a pink and yellow. He then shook sprinkles on, continuing on when the man making the order waved his had signalling to pile on a lot more. It was probably more sprinkles than anything else.

The man looked around for an empty table. The store is busy, but there was one on the far side, right in the corner that Ben spotted. It was too far away though, too many people between Ben and that table that would prevent him from looking. He didn’t want the object of his curiosity to flitter out of view.

As if fate were controlling his whims, the couple at the table adjacent started to leave, taking the remnants of their tubs with them. The surface was empty, clear and free and Ben willed the man to look that way; he pulled and pulled with his mind, hoping the man would sense the tug in this direction.

He almost didn’t. He almost put a foot in the other path, but then he looked up. He looked right at Ben, then right past him at the empty table. His eyes fluttered up again, almost as if he just knew.

Ben was met with the bluest blue; it was the most natural colour, the most beautiful colour in the whole place and it was almost like it shouldn’t be here. He turned his head down to look at the mush in the tub before him. He got a little angry with it. This wasn’t him. Ben Mitchell didn’t start fluttering eyes over some poxy frozen yoghurt like he was in some crappy American high school movie.

Out of the corner of the view, Ben could see the man had sat down at the table near him. He felt it safer to look now; the urge to make heart eyes like he was stuck in a pop song was starting to pass. The man had picked up his spoon, experimentally taking some of the scoop onto it. He held it up to his lips, just sticking his tongue out a little to taste.

Ben was definitely making eyes at that, but they certainly weren’t heart ones. The man got braver now, taking the entire spoonful into his mouth. It was just a moment, a tick of the clock before his face turned into a grimace and he wrinkled up his nose, looking at the spoon with such disgust, as if it had slapped him in the face.

Holding in a chuckle, Ben couldn’t help feel this warm amusement, this pull to go nearer, to glide over. It was counterintuitive to everything he was; this need to push and shove people away, knowing they couldn’t get too close, knowing they would just fall away easily. He had to push this one away. But this time he didn’t want to.

The man stuck his spoon into the tub with a huff. Unfortunately, the force matched with the resistance of the contents meant that it bounced off and went flying out of his hand, across the room, landing with a tap and bounce on Ben’s table.

They both looked at the spoon, and then at each other, before looking back at the plastic utensil as if it were going to clamber up and walk back to the other table by itself. The stranger hesitantly got out his seat, and walked across, giving Ben a smile, before pointing to the offending item.

“Even the spoon wants to get away from it!” he said in a chuckle, the low rumble of his voice vibrating off of Ben’s skin. He seemed to stop and catch himself though, as if he were inwardly rolling his eyes at the embarrassment of the joke he made. Ben didn’t think it was embarrassing. He thought it was adorable. And he didn’t do adorable. That was for fluffy kittens and one eared bunny rabbits. Not him. “Sorry, I just ain’t never had frozen yogurt before. Bit weird, innit?”

Ben didn’t know if he meant it was strange that he’d never had it before, or that the product was strange. “I ain’t had it either, and I ain’t planning on it again!” he said back, the man’s eyes lighting up as he found a mutual Anti-FroYo campaigner. “Ain’t the best thing I’ve ever put in my mouth.”

“Right?” he said enthusiastically, before leaning back over to his table and picking up his pot. He came back over and slid into the seat opposite Ben, setting his tub down with the spoon. “I mean, what’s even the point of making it? Yoghurt’s already cold, ain’t it? You keep it in the fridge, and it ain’t gonna be that different if it’s just moved up a shelf to the freezer! And why is it considered a treat? Who in their right mind goes to get a bit of a sugar hit and grabs a yogurt? Do you know what I mean?”

Ben nodded. Anything to just keep him talking. “What flavours did you get?” he asked, as the man picked up his spoon. “Apart from drowning it in sprinkles.”

“You can’t not have sprinkles if they’re offered,” he said with a shrug. “I got Apple Pie, Candy floss and Toasted Marshmellow.”

“And you thought they’d go together?” Ben said with a laugh. “Did you just pick the three sweetest flavours and hope for the best?

“That’s what I’d go for if it were just a normal pudding, and not some weird soured milk invention!” he said, before putting a little of each colour on his spoon, and then offering it across the table to Ben. “Go on, try. See what you think.”

Ben looked down at the spoon. He didn’t even usually share a smile with a bloke he wanted to get with, and he here was playing Lady and the Tramp in a dessert bar. He took it though. He couldn’t help but take it.

He took the spoon towards his mouth as the man looked on expectantly. He was grinning in his seat, waiting for the reaction. Ben slid the yogurt into his mouth, the sugar hitting immediately before the sourness kicked in. He handed the spoon back. “Yeah, that’s just strange,” he confirmed. “It’s too sweet but then in another way not sweet at all.”

“Let me try yours,” he said, not even waiting to be asked. He picked up Ben’s spoon and took a small scoop of each of the two flavours given, before popping it into his mouth. His eyes darted to the side before he gave a shudder with his whole body. “That is vile!” he exclaimed, passing Ben’s spoon back to him. “What is that?”

“Kiwi and coffee,” Ben explained, as the man kept twitching his nose is disgust. “Sharp and bitter, just like me. Well, now that we’ve spooned, don’t you think we should know each other’s name?”

He looked at Ben then, and for a second he thought the man was just going to leave. That he didn’t want to be so close as to learn his name. It was a personal, or at least it could be. That’s why Ben never took stock in knowing or remembering the names of the men he met. It could be too close.

“Callum,” he said, holding out his spoon.

Ben looked at it curiously, unsure what he was supposed to do. But he looked at his face. Callum. At the grin, and the tease. At the pull and the temptation. And he knew. Right from that moment he knew. And in the years that followed, when he looked back at this second, at this small seemingly insignificant tick of time, he’d realised that this was it. The point of no return, the moment he should have turned back and snapped the string tying them together while it still glistened enough for him to see it.

Instead he picked up his spoon and tapped it gently against the one Callum was holding, patiently waiting for a response. “Ben,” he replied.

The smile that followed seemed to sense that he knew. That he could already feel how easily he could get Ben to follow in any direction he was going in, even without meaning to, even when he wanted anything else but that. He didn’t know then though. How could he have? “Look, do you wanna get out of here?” Callum said, pushing at the tub with his spoon. “I know a really good ice cream place in the park round the corner, it’s only a five minute walk. You fancy it?”

Ben grinned back, pushing his pot away, and thanking his lucky stars he didn’t have to put anymore of that in his mouth. “Thought you’d never ask!”

Callum scooted out from the booth, and walked towards the door, checking quickly behind him to see if Ben was following.

He was.

He always would be.


End file.
